Monday, December 15, 2014

Industrial Automation Technology

Industrial Automation Technology refers to the control of
industrial machinery and its various processes thus reducing the need
for human intervention. Industrial automation technology makes use of
various control systems such as programmable logic control, industrial
control and numerical control systems. These applications are usually
used in concert with information technology systems such as computer
technologies that control the automated machinery.

Automation is a
step up from mechanization because it greatly reduces the human mental
and sensory requirements, whereas mechanization assists human operators
with the muscular requirements for the work.

Industrial automation
plays a large part in the global economy, and engineers work hard to
combine mathematical tools with automated devices to produce better and
more complex systems for the expanding applications and range of human
activities.

The automation of machines and other technologies has a
big impact on a wide range of industries, for example; telephone
operators have been mostly replaced by automated switchboards and
answering machines, and automated teller machines now make money
transactions much easier and help cut down visits to the bank.

Industrial
automation is used in a wide range of industries for many different
types of application and some of these can include:

o Mechanical engineering

o Industrial controls

o Electronic engineering

o Integrated circuit design

o Motion control and fluid control

o Data acquisition software

There are many advantages and disadvantages in the scope of industrialization and some of these advantages are:

o Economy improvement

o Can be used to carry out dangerous tasks

o Can replace tedious human tasks

Some of the main disadvantages are:

o Automation has its limits and at present is unable to replace all human tasks

o Development costs can be unpredictable

o Initial set-up costs are usually high

It
is thought by some critics that automation will lead to higher
unemployment, yet others argue that the opposite is true and that
automation has led to higher employment.